My main forms of assessment throughout the practicum included informal and formal formative and summative assessments. I took detailed anecdotal notes on students which helped me assess which students needed more help or had mastered the material. I realized that informal assessments are very important: seeing how they performed prior to dismissal to seatwork often gave me a good indication of their understanding. I also used the “thumbs up/thumbs down” method which often confirmed my own assessment of their progress. However, more formal assessments, such as marking assignments, gave me a better sense of academic progress.
I believe that summative assessment was crucial when communicating their progress in the report cards.Worksheets, assignments, and student material was kept in a portfolio which also formed the basis of summative assessment. However, I truly found that formative assessment is what gave me a better sense of how to structure my future lessons. Based on student performance, I could determine at what pace I should teach the material, what skills I needed to explicitly teach, and what areas to focus on.
Upon reflection, I hope to incorporate a greater range of assessments in the future as I relied too much on paper and pen assessments during my practicum. Greater use of drama, art, and projects would allow for greater representation of different modalities through which learning occur.